Shadow – Go Mad!

In the mid 1960s, Belmont books acquired the rights to The Shadow and launched a new series of paperbacks, attempting to update the pulp crime fighter for a new era. For the first book in the series, they hired the original Shadow writer, Walter Gibson, who penned The Return of The Shadow. Despite being set nearly fifteen years after the original run of the series, that book was nearly indistinguishable from the original pulps. After a bit of searching, I got my hands on one of the later books in the series: Shadow – Go Mad!

Written by Dennis Lynds, who wrote all 8 of the non-Gibson books in the series, this book is closer in feel to the old James Bond movies than it is to the original Shadow stories. Here The Shadow runs a world-wide organization of crime fighters, each of whom wears a radio-ring modelled after The Shadow’s famous girasol. The Shadow still looks basically the same, but he has acquired the power to ‘Cloud Men’s Minds’ that he had in the old radio show. This power can make him invisible, hypnotize his enemies, and also (somehow) allows him to effect electronic circuitry – a useful power in the 60s, a devastating power these days. In one of the book’s stupider twists, The Shadow only has these powers when he’s wearing his hat and cloak, not because either have any special properties, but just because...well, it never really explains why.

The book itself is underwhelming. It starts interestingly enough, with a series of seemingly unconnected, motiveless crimes. However, the mystery is solved in the first thirty pages and the rest of the book is basically a budget spy novel, with the Shadow taking on various disguises and battling the minions of the evil criminal corporation known as CYPHER.

In truth, there is very little to recommend this Shadow – God Mad! is probably one of the worst ever associated with the character, and it doesn’t even make particular sense in the context of the story. The cover is also rather poor. Although it gives us the classic Shadow profile, he is apparently firing some sort of laser gun (as opposed to the automatic pistol he uses in the book).

novel. Even the title

As a Shadow collector, I can take some small delight in having read this book and learning more about this short era of the character’s life. Unless you are the same, avoid.

Dalek Overrun

Some battle reports don't need any words.

The Bat is Back! (Knights vs. Devils)

The Knights were back on the field last night, taking on one of our main division rivals, The Devils, in a make-up game for an earlier rainout. I was back at my more familiar and comfortable position of pitcher.

 I tossed a pretty good game, only walking one (which I didn’t mind in the situation) and picking up an unusually high number of strikeouts. I also managed to snag a couple of comebackers.

                My real joy on the night was at the plate, where I reach safely in all five of my at-bats. I lead off the second inning with sharp grounder between first and second. I also lead off the third, lining a ball over second base. From that point, the opposing pitcher began to pitch me inside, but my patience held. I walked in my next two at-bats (probably matching my season total for last year). In my final at-bat, leading off the seventh inning, I turned on a 2-0 pitch over the heart of the plate and launched it over the centerfielder. With no wall to stop it, the ball rolled into the distance, and I notched my first-ever league official home run. 

                The Knights took the game by three runs, though I’m not sure I ever knew the exact score. After Tuesday’s somewhat dismal personal performance, it was nice to get back out there and have such a positive night at the plate.

Career Hits: 92, 1 Home Run

Oxford Knights vs. Vodafone Heat

My Knights lost in extra-innings last night, 14-11.  I fear I didn’t contribute much to the offense, going a rather dismal 1 for 4 with a run scored, and even that one hit was a bit of generous scoring. In the field, I spent the entire game at shortstop. In truth, I’m basically the team’s utility fielder, I can play every position competently, but outside of my natural position at second base, I'm not great at any of them. I made one throwing error in the game, which is annoying since throwing is probably what I’m best at. On the plus side, I was part of two relays which got runners at third, including a rather epic 9-4-6-5 (that’s right field to second base to shortstop to third base) play that nailed a guy going for a triple.

It’s a short turnaround this week as we are back on the field on Thursday to make up a rainout. Hopefully, I’ll do a little better with the bat.

Career Hits: 89

Historical Factoid

An interesting little point jumped out at me while reading The Shadow: The Veiled Prophet (see below). At one point in the story, Detective Joe Cardona receives a letter and notices that it has a two cent stamp instead of the normal three cent stamp, which means that the letter was mailed from inside New York City.

I never knew that there used to be different stamps for internal city mail.

The Shadow: The Veiled Prophet

The Shadow: The Veiled Prophet is the second book in volume 65 of Sanctum Books Shadow reprint series. It is paired with Gypsy Vengeance which I reviewed a few months ago.

I’ve got to say, The Veiled Prophet is one of the better Shadow stories I’ve read in the last few years. It opens with a top-notch action sequence, which could easily be imagined in terms of modern cinema. From there it quickly becomes a very tangled mystery.

Unlike many Shadow novels, the Shadow’s agents play only a minor role in this story. For the most part, the Shadow does his own investigation, sometimes in the form of Lamont Cranston, but mostly in his black hat and cloak. In these guises, he snoops around the scenes of crimes and follows after the numerous suspects, slowly unravelling the various clues and misdirections. It is one of those Shadow stories that proves that Walter Gibson (aka Maxwell Grant) really did have a talent for writing mysteries. It is perhaps unfortunate that the incredible writing schedule he followed for The Shadow (often producing a short novel every two weeks) never allowed him to really work with and develop any of the stories.

Still, it is an enjoyable ride that kept me guessing until the very end and has renewed my enthusiasm for the series.

For hardcore Shadow fans, several agents do appear in the novel, including Moe Schrevnitz, Harry Vincent, and Burbank. In fact, the novel contains a very rare example of Burbank (who runs the Shadow’s contact network) actually leaving his mysterious location and operating in the field. It is implied that several more agents appear at one point, but they are not named.

Doctor Who: Underworld

As a pre-birthday present to myself, I bought a handful of classic Doctor Who DVDs, and watched the first one tonight.

Underworld is a four-part adventure featuring the Fourth Doctor, Leela, and K-9, and it begins with a strong-opening episode.  Arriving at the very edge of the Universe, the TARDIS is forced to make an emergency landing on a passing spaceship, a spaceship that has been travelling for 100,000 years.  Although the spaceship special effects are as bad as anything from this era of Doctor who, the actual ship itself is a fantastic little model. 

After a brief misunderstanding, the Doctor quickly gains the trust of the surviving crew and becomes involved in the final stage of their great quest that has seen them voyage from one side of the universe to the other. Very early on, it is apparent that the writers have drawn heavily on Greek mythology for their inspiration. In a nice touch, the crew wear bronze space suits and carry ‘sheild-guns’, which gives them a slightly hoplite appearance.

Unfortunately, the remaining three episodes fail to live up to the promise set by the first. A majority of the next two episodes are spent in a series of confused and mostly pointless chase scenes, with occasional gun fights. This might not have been so bad if the sets had been better, but even on a show known for its wobbly sets, these were awful. I’ll take an abandoned quarry any day over ‘caves’ built from papier-mâché. To make matters worse, several characters actions seem badly contrived to push the plot forward.

The final episode does redeem the adventure a bit. The bad guys actually do something clever. The Doctor, of course, does something slightly more clever, and our heroes escape in the nick of time.

In the final verdict, Underworld is a fun watch, with some nice moments, and Tom Baker’s clearly having a good time. It is just unfortunate that an opening episode that seemed filled with so much promise, proved the high point of the adventure.